He looked back at me. “This is right,” he said quietly but firmly.
“Don’t you smell it?” I cried. Faint on the air before was a whiff of brimstone.
And then, as suddenly as it had come it was gone again. The demon coming up for a quick peek? But he seemed to have abandoned Cyrus and all the spells he had been helping him with. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Paul. Keep going.”
We crept onward. The king was leading more and more slowly now, stopping at every intersection to grope, to pace off distances, to consider whether to turn or continue straight. I listened, both with my ears and with magic, for either children’s voices or Vlad’s footsteps, but heard nothing but our own breathing. He had not come after us at once, not even to get revenge on his own pupil who had so recently tried to thwart his magic. That meant- I didn’t want to think what it meant, but I feared the logical conclusion was that he was starting with the children.
“Wait,” said Paul, so quietly I hardly heard him. He stood facing an invisible wall, feeling along it in both directions with his hands. “There’s supposed to be a door right here, into the last passageway that goes to the chapel. I can’t find it.”
Then we had taken a wrong turning someplace, I thought. “Back the way we just came?” I suggested.
Paul shook his head. “No, this should be it. I know that last turning was right. Unless-” We all waited. Fatigue and the strain made the king’s face hard and tight in the dim pre-dawn light. He did not curse, he did not shout at Cyrus, who should have at least as good an idea as he did where we were. Instead he said after a moment, “Wait for me. Let me retrace our steps just a little way-”
And abruptly the castle was back. We stood in a dark, enclosed passageway, without even a night sky above us. The solid rocks under our hands were no longer invisible.
Without even thinking I tried a spell of light. And it worked. The corridor lit up for a few seconds as bright as day.
“Ha!” cried Paul, the tension gone from his face. “I knew I was right! I’d just forgotten we had to turn left and walk twenty feet along this arcading first. Come on! We’re almost there.”
Spells of light were too hard to keep going constantly; a flare would glow for only a few seconds unless there was something to burn. In the dark again, our eyes too dazzled to see at all, we followed Paul as quickly as we dared.
Cyrus’s hand closed around my shoulder. “How did you do that? Vlad spelled this castle against the magic of light!”
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. Vlad had also made it invisible just a short time before. Were he and the demon engaged in some gigantic clash that had diverted both their attentions?
“And down here to the chapel,” the king called back cheerily. “I think I may see some light at the end of the passage-perhaps the children have lit a bonfire?”
But Vlad, if he had truly overcome the demon, would have had plenty of time to reach the ruined chapel before us. I had no idea what might be happening, but that did not keep my mind from churning out terrifying possibilities.
We stumbled forward, almost running. Paul, in the lead, tripped and hit the floor hard. “Watch it,” he gasped, waiting to catch his breath before even trying to sit up, “there’s something big and damp in the middle of the passage.”
A pool of blood? I cast another spell of light to see for a moment. Sitting in the middle of the passageway, looking at us with mournful eyes, was an enormous green frog.
I lifted it slowly, staring in disbelief as my magical light faded. “Ugh!” cried Justinia. “How did it arrive here? Put it down, Wizard!”
But I did not put it down. I turned it slowly, probing with magic now. The frog was held by a transformation spell that trembled just over the line into success. The transmogrified creature was strangely misshapen, and something was wrong with its eyes. “Daimbert?” asked Theodora quietly.
“Sweet Jesus,” I said at last. “I think it’s Vlad.”
I stuffed the frog into my jacket pocket; I would have to strengthen the spell that held him, but it would do for the moment and even more urgent things demanded my attention. Squaring my shoulders I pushed ahead of Paul, down the passage toward the chapel. Whatever was there, I thought a wizard ought to see it first.
As I came cautiously nearer, I too saw the light that Paul had thought might come from a bonfire. But the chapel itself at the end of the passage appeared completely dark other than that ghastly orange glow. The light did not flicker. Vlad kicked in my pocket, but this wasn’t his magic; as a frog, he wouldn’t be able to shape the words of the Hidden Language. This was something far more powerful-and even worse-than anything of his.
Panting as from a long run, I reached the doorway and stopped, holding onto the doorframe with both hands. The chapel was very quiet except for the sound of one small person sobbing. My heart suddenly felt as though it had been crushed inside my chest, for that voice was Antonia’s.
In the center of the chapel were two pentagrams, drawn with colored chalk. One of the pentagrams was empty, though a little yellow brimstone floated in the air over it. Glowing bright red in the middle of the other was a being with curved horns, an enormous bloated belly, two writhing snakes for legs, and eyes that burned with real flames.
The demon smiled, revealing twice as many teeth even as Vlad, a smile suggesting that we were old friends and he was delighted to see me again.
When I stopped dead in the doorway Paul and Theodora, behind me, first tried to push forward, then froze themselves. “May God be merciful,” murmured Justinia in horror.
But the sobbing continued. The pentagram was closed, I saw, holding the demon trapped. Theodora, Paul, and I wrenched ourselves from the doorframe and sprang forward. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
The demon turned avidly to follow our progress. I didn’t like the way he looked at me-meeting Vlad had already been one reunion too many with an old enemy-but I averted my eyes for something far more important. On the far side of the pentagram, chalk clutched desperately in one small hand, sat Antonia.
Theodora and I nearly ripped her in half as we both snatched her up. Somehow we managed on the second try. The chalk dropped from her fingers to roll away into darkness. The demon continued watching but had not spoken; maybe he couldn’t while trapped unless addressed by the person who had summoned him.
I saw then, all around, the still forms of the other children. Dead? I thought, my insides going to ice. But they were breathing, rapidly and shallowly, but breathing.
“Gwennie!” called Paul, his voice an octave too high. “We’ve got to get these kids out of here!”
She might not have entered a room with a staring demon in the center for anyone else, but she did for the king. She ran toward him, gasping for breath. Theodora and I, selfishly ignoring any child but our own, carried Antonia back up the passage as fast as we could go, but behind us I heard Paul say, “Just grab as many as you can. We’ve got to get them away from here. Justinia! Cyrus!” I didn’t wait to see if the others obeyed.
Antonia stopped sobbing as soon as we were out of the chapel, but she clung to me like a bur, her face in my beard. Now that we could see the castle again, we were quickly able to reach a window and collapse with real light, the light of an summer’s early dawn, breaking through. The heavy clouds that Vlad had summoned were now dissipating and rolling away.
Gently I pried Antonia’s hands out of my beard and turned her around. Her face was filthy and streaked with tears, but she managed half a smile for us. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” she said.
Theodora started crying herself, kissing her hard. “We were scared, dearest,” she murmured, “but it wasn’t your fault. We’re just so happy to find you alive and well. Could you tell us-tell us what happened back there in the chapel?”